ELKHART LAKE, Sep. 20, 2012: John Buttermore, of Wixom, Mich., caught
lightening in a bottle when he drove flag-to-flag to win his second
consecutive Touring 1 National Championship at the 49th SCCA National
Championship Runoffs at Road America. Andrew Aquilante, of Chester Springs,
Pa., and Tim Hund, of Norfolk, Va., finished second and third,
respectively.

Driving the No. 52 Hoosier/Carbotech/Stoptech Chevrolet Corvette,
Buttermore started from the Gumout pole position, led into Turn 1 and never
looked back. He was never seriously challenged for the lead. In fact, he
beat Aquilante, the 2007 T1 National Champion, by 21.611-seconds over the
4.048-mile, 14-turn course.

“It was pretty smooth,” Buttermore said of his race.
“Everything went according to the plan that we had. We wanted to get
out and see if we could break the draft and get away. Running into the back
of the STO traffic made things interesting. It went very well for me
[getting through the STO traffic] because I got them before the Kink and
Andrew got shaved off behind. That didn’t help him. Once we got that
gap, I ran four or five laps at 100 percent and then put it back to 90
percent and cruised with it.”

Buttermore turned the Hawk Performance fast race lap with a
2:21.825.

Early on, Aquilante battled Michael Pettiford, of Louisville, Colo., for
second, swapping spots several times in the opening laps. But, as the race
settled in, Aquilante took firm control of second in his No. 36
Phoenix/Hoosier/Hawk Ford Mustang Boss 302, which is where he finished.
Unfortunately, Pettiford lost his bid for a podium finish when his No. 41
GO 4 IT Racing Schools/Hoosier Tire Chevrolet Corvette C6 cut a left rear
tire on lap 9. This forced him to pit lane for a new one. He finished
ninth.

“I am a little upset about the start,” Aquliante said.
“But, it was it is. I’ll get over that. I thought I had a
chance to race with him [Buttermore], but obviously John was the class of
the field. When Mike [Pettiford] got alongside of me we went side-by-side,
I knew I had to get back around Mike in order to have a chance to chase
down John. He [Pettiford] hung with me pretty good for the first lap. When
we came up on some of the slower cars in STO, it got kind of got messy.
But, it was a pretty good race.”

Hund, who started seventh in the No. 22 Old Dominion Metals Dodge Viper,
drove an impressive race moving up four spots to finish a career-best third
in the T1 National Championship. Hund’s previous best T1 finish was
seventh last year. He was also the race’s Sunoco Hard Charger.

“Someone made me mad in qualifying yesterday,” Hund said.
“I drive a lot better mad because I’m normally a pretty happy
guy. I told the guys, ‘I just going to go with it.’ This time,
I was a little more driven. I think I had a much better race because I
concentrated harder and was much more driven.

“This means a whole lot to me [about his career-best third place
Runoffs finish]. I’m not exactly the young guy up here. I kind of
break the age curve here a little bit. Seventh was my previous best finish.
To get third is quite an honor against guys who are great. I certainly was
not in the hunt with these two guys [Buttermore and Aquilante], but we
battled with some of the other guys who were a little bit more my ability.
We had a good race with some great racers out there.”

Now in its 49th year, the SCCA National Championship Runoffs annually
crowns Champions in the Sports Car Club of America's Club Racing classes.
The live broadcast of all 28 National Championship races will be available
through Sunday at www.SpeedcastTV.com/scca and
later available On Demand from the same site.